Book or Blog?

February 3, 2006

I have a friend who doesn’t read. Well, he reads, but only stuff on his computer. I know he has read books in the past, but these days he just doesn’t.

I find that I’m increasingly impatient with paper. I’ve stopped all newspapers although I have to buy them occasionally, as I have two African Grey parrots who put them to good use. I have my own list of news sources, blogs, and websites bookmarked on my computer, just as you do. I can watch DVDs, read, listen to music, see photos, search, ask questions…

With books, I love to curl up and lose myself in whatever it is I’m reading about.

But the “book” I’m writingnow, “The Music of Rufus Wainwright,” is something that would work better on a computer with a high speed connection. The luxury of being able to embed anything in the flow of your article, is so tempting to me now, it’s hard to go back to paper. I’m not interested in selling a DVD with the waffling Professor going on about something. A paper book with the attached DVD tucked into the back cover ain’t it either. It should just be online. Completely.

With my new book, I’m debating issuing it in installments on this blog — with, say, one per week.

It seems knowledge is free on the internet these days. Yes, there are pockets of online journals that charge, but so much content is available to us online, the cost is virtually nothing. When I see online resources like JSTOR, or soundscape.info, I am amazed at the amount of information available to us that is free. To that end, I am mulling over just making my Rufus book available for free. A friend suggested I put out a “tip jar.” Another advised me to put some Google ads in to help subsidize it.

I’d like your thoughts on this, and while you are, stare at the image of the puddle in the previous post and listen to the first of my “Arias for cello and piano” with Ron Leonard playing cello, and Antoinette Perry playing piano.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

:O We need a BOOK! It’s a great idea to bring it out on a blog, but if it’s in print we can spread the word to other people, for instance, I’m sure my music teacher at college would be very interested to have a browse and see what “all the fuss is about” and if I were to hand him a book, it would have more impact and chance of him reading it than a web address…surely?

Loved the aria, Monsieur Berlioz. By coincidence, I had been sitting here this morning, watching the raindrops bounce off the glass doors…. When I listened to this passage, the rain had stopped, and I felt as if the music was telling the story of this rainy morning–so odd for February in New York.

Lovely. Cello is an instrument I’ve always wished I could play.

Oh….blog or book? In this day and age when so much of life is virtual, having a real book to touch, smell and feel would be nice. I have to admit, however, that for those of us without the musical talents for analyzing music as you do, the sound clips you have posted have been most helpful. A dilemma, to be sure.

Well…. Charles Dickens released his novels in chapters in the paper first didn’t he? Armistead Maupin did his “Tales of the City” as weekly installments didn’t he? I’m getting more support for doing the paper manifestation thing. But I think I’m going to do both.

Berlioz, I’m glad you found the “write” medium for your literary endeavor. The nice thing about having the work begin as a ‘blog’ form is that you are able to gradually educate the very people who will hopefully be able to help you ‘polish’ the work’s trivia details. I’d like to encourage you to continue, realizing most of us are totally unschooled in those analytic methods. But still able to fill in bits of history and detail as might be appropriate.